<p>The balance between ecosystem and economy is vital in the ecologically sensitive regions for achieving sustainable development. Tourism development brings economic benefits; however, it also poses threat to environment and society. This study investigates the impacts of tourism activities on ecosystem services and socio-economic changes in the Eastern Chotanagpur region, India. Through the analysis of land use and land cover (LULC) and ecosystem service valuation (ESV), the study depicts the relationship between the development of tourism, local environment and community welfare. The LULC analysis revealed that vegetated areas have decreased by 3.53% and agricultural land by 16.69%, while built-up areas rose by 292.87% across the region. Within one kilometre buffer, around main tourist destinations, the built-up area grew up significantly, with an increase of 640.20% around Dassam Waterfall. The ecosystem service valuation (ESV), extracted from these LULC changes revealed a significant decline by 10.21% for the whole region and 13.01% in tourism dependent areas. It shows how ecosystem services have been impacted by the growing tourism infrastructure and the socio-economic survey using random sampling of 197 households, coupled with an entropy analysis reflects community opinions on the benefits of tourism, with employment and local business growth weighted at 0.086 and 0.072, respectively. The transportation development weighted 0.125, although opinions differed, the community valued the increased connectivity. With comparable weights of 0.060 and 0.102, negative factors such as growing living costs and traffic congestion were also observed. The result highlights how urgently sustainable tourism policies including a fair distribution of profits and reducing environmental harm in the area, must be adopted.</p>